SKH-10c-1938S-01 Spiked Head

Description

The sole spiked head documented for the 1938-S Mercury Dime, the SKH-10c-1938S-01 records a die chip protrusion on a San Francisco Mint issue from the penultimate year of Buffalo Nickel production — while the dime continued Weinman's Mercury design through 1945, the nickel was transitioning to Felix Schlag's Jefferson design in this same year. The 1938-S Mercury Dime had a mintage of approximately 8.1 million pieces, placing it in the moderate range for San Francisco output. San Francisco Mint die varieties carry particular interest because the facility typically produced lower mintage runs than Philadelphia, and its coins are often associated with superior strike quality due to the lower production pressure on individual dies. The spiked head on this San Francisco issue demonstrates that the die failure pattern — metal fatigue at Liberty's cap apex creating a raised protrusion — occurred across all three mint facilities regardless of production volume or geographic location. Attributed by Cuds on Coins with a catalog date of December 2017, this variety represents one of the relatively few S-mint spiked heads in the Mercury Dime series, as San Francisco's lower production volumes generated fewer die failure specimens overall.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Soren Rollin
• Cross reference: none. 12/30/2017.
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References